


Safety Net

by kay_emm_gee



Series: Bellarke Secret Valentine's Event 2015 [1]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: 1x12, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bellarke Secret Valentine Gift, F/M, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-15
Updated: 2015-02-15
Packaged: 2018-03-13 03:05:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3365381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kay_emm_gee/pseuds/kay_emm_gee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Finn and Clarke return to camp in 1x12, but in this version, they don't come back unscathed. Clarke's injured, and Bellamy has to take care of her.</p><p>Written for the Bellarke Secret Valentine Event 2015.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Safety Net

The radio in Bellamy’s hand crackled. “All gunners, we got movement outside the south wall!”

 _Goddamnit_. It was one friggin’ thing after another, and Bellamy’s heart was probably going to give out soon. First Murphy escaping, now a possible Grounder attack. He tore down the dropship ladder, Jasper clattering along behind him. Tense shouts from the sentries warned the crowd amassing at the gate. Guns were drawn, faces set in determination and fear. As he ran towards them, Bellamy sucked in a breath and braced himself, eyes glued to the sentries.

“Wait!” Miller called. “Hold your fire. Clarke and Finn.”

Bellamy sighed in relief as next to him Jasper whispered, “Thank god!”

“Get it, get the gate!” Miller screamed. Bellamy jerked his head to his second-in-command, shocked by the panic in his voice. _Were Grounders chasing them? What had him so afraid?_

Then the gate opened, and Finn came through. Clarke was in his arms, unconscious. Bellamy’s heart stuttered, stopping for a split second, before taking off in a double-time beat. His legs moved without thinking, boots skidding on the wet ground. Jasper followed behind him, panting out Clarke’s name.

“She’s alive,” Finn said in a strangled voice as he stumbled by them, making for the dropship.

“What happened?” Bellamy demanded as he pushed through the people gathering around Finn. The boy didn’t respond right away, heaving breaths in and out. He must’ve been carrying her for a while, but Bellamy didn’t have the patience to wait for him to recover, and Clarke didn’t have the time.

“What. Happened.” Bellamy ground out.

“Reapers,” Finn wheezed. 

Fearful, confused murmurs rippled through the crowd.

“What?” Bellamy demanded.

“Reapers. They’re monsters, deformed humans, that live in the mountain tunnels,” Finn announced, and Bellamy swore. _Friggin’ goddamn hell of a planet_. “We ran into them when we were escaping from the Grounders. Lincoln led most of them off—” Octavia let out a pained sound at that revelation, and Bellamy squeezed her sholder “—but one followed us. We fought, and he knocked Clarke out before I could kill him. She’s been out cold since.” 

Bellamy could see the panic in the boy’s eyes. It was the same panic clawing at his own throat. As the crowd began to feel it as well, he choked down a tense swallow: _get it together, for them, for Clarke_.

“Back—back to your posts!” He stuttered, before finally steadying his voice. “The Grounders are still coming, and we need to be ready. Clarke will be fine. Get to work, get to work!” He called, gesturing widely with his hands. After nodding at Miller ( _take over for me_ ) who nodded in response ( _on it, boss_ ), Bellamy turned back to Finn, who was still struggling to hold onto Clarke.

“I’ll take her to the dropship,” Bellamy murmured as he tried to slip his arms under the unconscious blonde. 

“I got her,” Finn barked out. “Go back to your troops, general.”

“Finn, you can barely stand. Let me—”

“Help,” a weak, female voice called from behind them.

Raven was hobbling in through the back gate, hands clutching her bloody stomach.

“Oh my god,” Octavia said, dashing over, along with Jasper, to support the girl and walk her into the dropship.

Bellamy felt Clarke wobble in Finn’s arms and he seized the opportunity, lifting her away. Finn clutched at Clarke’s jacket briefly, as his gaze jerked from Raven back to Bellamy. After staring defiantly at him for a few seconds, Finn let go of his grip on Clarke.

Without her in the way, Bellamy could now see a bloodstain covering the entire front of boy’s shirt. “Finn, you’re bleeding,” he said worriedly.

“No, I’m not,” Finn replied in bewilderment. “What the—” He looked down, pawing at the stain, and then at Clarke. “No,” he whispered, his tone horrified.

That was when Bellamy noticed his fingers were now slippery. Looking down, he saw a wide slash in Clarke’s shirt and a matching deep gash running up her side, which had been hidden while she was pressed up against Finn.

“Damn it,” he whispered, seething with frustration. He strode toward the dropship, Finn following close on his heels. “Octavia!”

“A little busy!” She called out from behind the plastic sheets covering the entryway.

“Clarke’s been stabbed,” he said, pushing into their makeshift medbay, laying her on the table.

“Shit,” the mechanic whispered from a nearby chair, her pale face becoming more drawn as she looked at the unmoving Clarke.

“Bell, what do we do?” Octavia whispered desperately.

Bellamy just stood there in the dropship, leaning over Clarke. He listened to the frantic steps and calls of the people outside preparing for war, to Finn’s still-labored breaths, to Raven’s pained whimper, to Octavia’s repeated question: _what do we do?_ He stared at the girl on the table, wished with all his being that she would just open her goddamn eyes because she was the one with the answers, always, but they stayed closed. He was alone.

“Bell!” His gaze jerked from the strands of mud-soaked blonde hair twisting across Clarke’s face to his sister’s worried green eyes. Clutching his arm, she brought him close and whispered firmly, “What would she do? What would Clarke do?”

_She would save them. So save them, Bellamy._

“Finn, go get a needle and wire for Clarke,” he finally said, slowly. “Jasper, more moonshine. Octavia, find a flat blade, sterilize it, and heat it for Raven.” He glanced at the mechanic, whose face tightened in understanding, while the rest scattered to get their assigned materials.

“Aw shit, Blake, and we were just becoming friends,” Raven said with a grim smile and a single, dark bark of a laugh. “What did I ever do to you?”

“What you _can_ do is keep your pain-in-the-ass self alive,” he replied as he dug through the medical box for clean rags.

“Yessir,” she sighed out, eyelids fluttering closed.

“Reyes! Stay with me.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” she mumbled, cracking her eyes open. “Got shot remember?”

Bellamy just huffed in response to her dry retort. While cleaning Clarke’s gash, he had to wake Raven up twice more before the others returned with the supplies. The mechanic’s agonizing scream at the scalding metal touching her torn skin echoed in Bellamy’s ears long after the wounded girl had passed out from the pain. Octavia and Jasper moved her to a hammock to recover, leaving Bellamy and Finn alone with the still-unconscious Clarke.

“She hasn’t woken up,” Finn stuttered as he tried, and failed, to thread the wire through the needle.

“She will,” Bellamy insisted. _She has to_.

Frankly, Bellamy didn’t know how the boy was still functioning, with both of the girls injured. As Finn unsuccessfully tried for a third time to thread the needle, Bellamy reached out to grab them from him.

“I got this,” Finn said harshly.

“No, you don’t.” Without waiting for a response, he took the supplies from Finn, slipping the wire through the hole in the first try. Finn pushed back from the table, hands cupped around the back of his head, glaring at Bellamy. 

“Go take a walk,” Bellamy suggested in a firm tone as he straightened out the remaining wire.

“I am not leaving her.”

“Go take care of Raven, then. She’s your girlfriend, isn’t she?” Bellamy knew it was a low blow, but he couldn’t have a liability in here while he was stitching up Clarke. Who knows what Finn would do to him if she took a turn for the worse, or if he screwed up. _God, why had he thought that, as if he didn’t have enough to worry about._

“I’m not—”

“Clarke is running out of time, Finn. You don’t have it together enough to do this. I do, and you are distracting me. This needs to be done fast and without disruption. So go!”

Finn sent him a scathing but accepting look before brushing his hand against Clarke’s cheek in farewell.  “Don’t you die on me,” he whispered before pulling away and walking over to Raven’s hammock, settling down underneath it. 

Bellamy blew out a long breath. He twirled the needle between his thumb and forefinger, dipping it in the bowl of moonshine one more time before placing the tip at the top of the gash. Pushing it forward, he expected resistance from her skin, but there was none. _What—_

The needle had pushed into her shirt, an inch above the wound. The tip was vibrating. It fell from his fingers, which were trembling. His whole hand was shaking, goddamn it. _So much for having your shit together._ He gripped the edge of the table, sharp metal biting into his sweaty palms. Bending his head, he closed his eyes and breathed. _She doesn’t have this time to waste, get it together. Steady hands, you need steady hands._

After counting to ten, he picked up the needle again, positioning it at the start of the wound. Willing his fingers to stay steady, he began to stitch. Each time the needle pushed into Clarke’s skin, he sucked in a breath, and he exhaled each time he pulled the wire through. Soon everything else fell away, narrowing down to the needle, the wire, the gash and his breathing. Every third suture he’d throw a quick glance at her still face, equal parts relieved that Clarke was not awake to feel the pain and worried that she was still unconscious. The pattern—push through, inhale, pull through, exhale—continued for god knows how long, until suddenly there was no more wound to sew up.

As Bellamy tied off the last stich, he heard a soft moan. Clarke twitched underneath his hands, almost jerking the needle away. Looking up, he saw her eyes peek open, and his entire body relaxed in relief.

“Hey,” she breathed, almost inaudible. The sound of her voice, even as weak as that, was the best thing he had heard in a long time. _She’s awake, she’s awake, she’s awake._ Overwhelmed, he leaned forward and pressed his forehead to the table, squeezing his eyes shut, hands gripping the sharp edge again. His hair brushed against her arm, which shifted in response.

“That tickles,” she said dazedly.

A tired, thankful, disbelieving laugh escaped from him, his throat closing up afterwards. Trying to clear it, he hummed, searching for words. They wouldn’t come, so he stayed bent over, eyes tightly shut, willing the pressure in his chest to subside enough to let him talk.

“Bellamy?”

He swallowed repeatedly until he could breathe properly again. Lifting his head, he blinked to clear his vision, finally settling his gaze on Clarke’s expectant face.

“Always got to make it hard on me, don’t you princess?” He murmured, his lips curving into a small half-smile.

“What?” She breathed, looking around, still disoriented.

“Here I am, stitching you up, after you were careless enough to get yourself injured, and you can’t even sit still for me.”

“Screw you,” she muttered, voice still weak. She closed her eyes.

“Hey hey, no passing out.” he said, moving closer to clear her hair away from her face. “Raven lost that game already, so prove to me that you’re tougher than her.”

“No one is tougher than Raven,” Clarke said, smiling a bit before realizing what he had said. “Wait, what’s wrong with her?” 

Bellamy clenched his hand into a fist at his side, his other one tensing against Clarke’s cheek. “Murphy shot her,” he spat out. 

“Damn it,” she whispered. “What the hell happened while we were gone?”

“What the hell happened to _you_ while you were gone?”

“The Grounders caught us while we were hunting, but Lincoln helped us escape, to warn us—oh no,” she gasped, eyes widening with panic. “We have to go, we have to leave. Now!” Clarke began shifting, trying to sit up, whimpering in the process.

Bellamy gently pushed against her shoulder, guiding her back down. “What are you doing?”

“The Grounders are coming. First light. Lincoln said to be gone before the scouts get here.” She pushed against him still. _Stubborn girl._

“Clarke, we are not going anywhere. This is our home, we’ll defend it, push them back like we have before. Besides, you and Raven are in no condition to travel.”

“Obviously we’ll have to stay. You’ll have to leave us. There’s an army coming like nothing we’ve seen before. You need to go, now,” she pleaded.

Bellamy’s hand tightened on her shoulder. “We are not leaving camp, and we wouldn’t leave you behind if we did. We need you.”

“Bellamy, they have you and that’s enough. To save them, you need to leave. Please. Save them.”

Tears gathered at the corners of her eyes, and Bellamy sighed in frustration at her obstinacy. Leaning into her, hands flat against the table on either side of her face, he met her determined stare with a steely one of his own. Her lips parted, her breath catching at his sudden, unusual proximity.

“And who is going to save you?”

“Bellamy. Please.”

“We—I would never leave you behind.” He paused, inhaling deeply, closing his eyes before he said, “I need you. I can’t do this without you.”

He opened his eyes, looking into her blue ones, which were wide with surprise but still grounded with seriousness ( _always serious, this girl_ ). Neither moved, barely breathing after that admission, until the radio in Bellamy’s pocket crackled.

Bellamy jerked away, reaching for the device. “What was that, Miller?”

“We need an update on Clarke and Raven. Nobody’s working, too distracted.”

“Yeah, uh, they’re both okay. Relatively. I’ll be out in a minute,” he said, shifting his glance towards Clarke. She nodded ( _go, I’m fine_ ), and he reluctantly turned to the back of the dropship.

“Finn!” He called. “Clarke’s awake. She’s asking for you.”

As Bellamy listened to Finn scramble up from his half-asleep position under Raven’s hammock, he saw Clarke’s brow furrow in confusion at his lie. He moved to leave, but before he could, Clarke caught his hand in her own.

“Thanks for patching me up,” she said, one corner of her mouth turning up softly.

“Let’s not make a habit of it,” he replied lightly.

“And Bellamy?”

“Yeah?”

“Keep them safe,” she said, the seriousness in her eyes deepening into something that looked an awful lot like unconditional trust. 

Bellamy nodded without saying a word, letting her fingers slip from his as Finn approached. As he headed towards the entrance, he flexed his hand, still warm from hers, confidence settling onto his shoulders as he strode out into the yard, determined to keep his word to her. _I’ll keep us safe, princess, you can bet on that._


End file.
